USA: America, Today Is “Take Your Gun To Starbucks” Day

The Fourth of July. Thanksgiving. The Super Bowl. These all-American holidays have been joined by a new and very special day: the grassroots Facebook campaign “I Love Guns and Coffee” have declared today as “Starbucks Appreciation Day” for more than 40 U.S. States with “open carry” firearms laws.

For those of you in countries that cannot fathom such a thing, “open carry” is a practice where gun owners “openly carry firearms while they go about their daily business,” according to this entry for it on Wikipedia (which includes a photograph of a Colorado gentleman enjoying his Burger King lunch while armed). This is not the first such organized day of appreciation at Starbucks, but it has garnered quite a bit of media attention, including features in the Moony Washington Times, The Seattle P.I.(not yet owned by a notorious cult), and Starbucks Gossip.

This is a real patch.

The first such “bring your gun to Starbucks” organized event happened last February, on 2-22 (a day gun fans use to celebrate the Second Amendment). A Starbucks spokesman had this to say back in February, speaking with The Washington Post:

Starbucks our longstanding position is to comply with local laws in the communities we serve. We think that’s the right way to ensure a safe environment for our partners.”

“I’m not a politician. I run a coffee company and we’re trying to abide by the laws in which we do business.”

And that’s the truth. If Howie were to ban guns in his stores, like the Brady Campaign and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America are asking him to, he’d open Starbucks up to a bevy of legal contradictions, going all the way back to the Constitution of the United States of America. Which in it of itself is peculiar, becuase the 2nd Amendment pretty clear pertains to the organizing of a well regulated militia (seems reasonable), not packing your snub-nose in line for Frapp Friday (perhaps less reasonable).

The whole thing is a legal morass, and Americans are very divided on this issue. Schultz & Co. would be asking for trouble if they banned guns, as they’ve already been singled out for political purposes by gun “enthusiasts” around the country. Plus, who would want to deny moments like this one, from commenter “scotch tapes” on Starbucks Gossip:

I’m a woman, and I conceal carry at my Starbucks every morning. Care to tell me how that’s enhancing my manhood? If you don’t like it, shop somewhere else. It’s that simple.

Only in America could a successful chain of coffee shops be both a flashpoint for supporting gay rights and a staging ground for public gun nuts. It doesn’t make sense; it’s not supposed to. America, today is your most American day of all.

Comments

Except the logo is a parody of the one made by the “Mom’s demand action” group to get Starbucks to ban guns, not directly a parody of the Starbuck’s logo.

And no, it is not clear the second amendment pertains to the “organizing of a well regulated militia”. What is clear is the 2nd amendment protects the same ‘people’ as all the rest of the bill of rights. You really think our founding fathers thought civil rights should be ‘regulated’ in the current sense of the word? No. Not hardly. “Well regulated” meant it worked well, like the clock.

Starbucks famously sued a Tulsa, OK coffee house over the use of the name ‘DoubleShot’ because it was too confusing for consumers, yet, nothing from the lawyers concerning the blatant use of the mermaid logo? I interpret this Schultzian neutrality to be a clear endorsement of I Love Guns and Coffee.